And the Ukraine recants over UNSC 2334, when will Bill?

The United Kingdom and the United States recanted their sneaky and underhanded back-stabbing of Israel with the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334.

The US, under Obama and via the dishonest and furtive John Kerry organised for New Zealand to front the resolution that shafted Israel. Much has been made of the 14-0 vote, but slowly but surely nations are realising the error of their ways.

Obama should never have authorised that as he was in the lame duck period of his presidency and should have consulted President-elect Donald Trump. He didn’t. The UK was blindsided and because the “honest party” New Zealand sponsored the resolution everyone was hoodwinked. Since then the UK has said if they knew the US would abstain they would have vetoed, the US has said they should have vetoed and now Ukraine has walked back their position.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday spoke with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, effectively burying the hatchet after a crisis in bilateral relations due to Kiev’s support for a United Nations Security Council resolution critical of the settlement enterprise.

“The two leaders agreed to resume their efforts to further strengthen the friendship between Israel and Ukraine,” a statement released by the Prime Minister’s Office read. Among other things, Netanyahu and Poroshenko discussed rescheduling the cancelled visit of Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman to Israel.

Groysman, who became Ukraine’s first Jewish prime minister last year, was scheduled to arrive in Israel for a two-day visit days after Ukraine voted in favor of UN Security Council Resolution 2334 in late December. The meeting would have included meetings with Netanyahu, President Reuven Rivlin and other top officials, but Jerusalem disinvited Groysman to protest Kiev’s support for the resolution, which Israel denounced as “shameful.”

“We consider Ukraine a very important country and our relations are excellent,” a Foreign Ministry official told The Times of Israel on Wednesday. “We look forward to reciprocal high-level visits.”

Most Ukrainians were surprised and disappointed at their government’s support for Resolution 2334, said Oleksandr Feldman, a member of the Ukrainian parliament and the president of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee, who is visiting Israel this week.

“The Jewish community was shocked over the Ukraine government’s vote. And most of Ukrainian society was also shocked. They didn’t expect it. It was a scandal. It is still a scandal,” Feldman told The Times of Israel during an interview this week, speaking through an interpreter.

It was scandal and a scandal that New Zealand fronted it. There has still been no real explanation of why we back-stabbed Israel.

Indeed, even the Ukrainian government has come to regret voting in favor of the resolution and would oppose any similar texts going forward he said. “Ukrainians want to think about this resolution as history; they want to leave the past behind.”

I wonder when Bill English will come to regret his actions and Murray McCully’s actions. Has he yet had a call from Trump? When he does get a call I suspect it will be worse than Malcolm Turnbull’s call.

Feldman, who was scheduled to meet with Interior Minister Arye Deri, Jerusalem Affairs and Environmental Protection Minister Ze’ev Elkin and officials in the Foreign and Diaspora Affairs ministries, said his visit to Israel was mainly intended to try to repair ties between Kiev and Jerusalem.

Understanding that Israel was furious about Ukraine’s vote in favor of Resolution 2334, he proposed a bill that would require his country to move its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. He admitted that his bill has “very low chances” of being passed into law, but insisted on proposing it to send a message that Ukrainians are keen to develop strong relations with Israel.

Feldman said his friend Groysman deeply regretted that his visit to Israel was cancelled, and that he is in contact with Israeli officials to schedule a new date. “I’m sure there will be a visit of the PM in the near future,” he said.

UNSC 2334 has hindered the peace progress not aided it. Now there is more chance that more countries will move their embassies from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Israel annexed Judea and Samaria.

Well done Murray McCully and Bill English, both of those idiots put us on the wrong side of history.

– Times of Israel.

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As much at home writing editorials as being the subject of them, Cam has won awards, including the Canon Media Award for his work on the Len Brown/Bevan Chuang story. When he’s not creating the news, he tends to be in it, with protagonists using the courts, media and social media to deliver financial as well as death threats.

They say that news is something that someone, somewhere, wants kept quiet. Cam Slater doesn’t do quiet and, as a result, he is a polarising, controversial but highly effective journalist who takes no prisoners.